There have been brandies, and thick puddings.
But every winter I think about sledding on Telegraph Hill with my friends and those disgustingly sweet, thick, sticky bottles of Blackberry Brandy.
If you ask me, the greatest cocktail in all South America is the pisco sour served in the bar in Lima's Gran Hotel Bolivar, a thick, luxurious tipple of pisco brandy shaken with egg white and fresh citrus, strained into a squat glass and inscribed with a free-form squiggle of Angostura bitters.
A 7.7% imperial stout laced with oats, Demerara and Belgian brewer's candi sugar, this was rich, thick beer; as warm as good brandy, its syrupy-ness nicely offset by tart, dark fruit and roasted flavours.
A hefty rib-eye steak comes with fat grilled cepes and a muscular brandy demi-glace, and a thick slab of salmon gets the works: a caviar-dotted beurre blanc, a scattering of grilled shrimp and parsnip whipped potatoes.
It is in his rendering of the border territory that Hugo and Mariana inhabit — "the thick darkness that was infused with perfume and brandy, and the pleasure that was mixed with a fear of the abyss" — that Appelfeld reveals his compassion, his wisdom and his restraint.
Or a heavyset, thick-coated wolf, strong enough to carry a cask of brandy, that thrives in Alpine passes and might be named after one of them, the St. Bernard?
Brandy de Jerez is mostly richer, sweeter, thicker and less refined than the more austere French brandies.
Dapper in a soul patch and thick mustache, striding around his big house talking about "a good brandy," he is a type you don't see often: a western nerd.
I can easily visualize sitting by the fire in such a house, sipping brandy under the beamed ceilings of a room with walls two feet thick.
